A Hero A Fake- The Future AgainReview by Camila Acosta

“Well, that was something,” were the first words that escaped from my mouth as I finished listening to this album. A Hero a Fake’s The Future Again is very different in very great and not so great ways. “Mechanical Hearts,” the first track, welcomes you with a wave of predictable bass chug-a-chug-chugs, deep fury screams and a bit of vague vocals of not really screaming nor singing, but more like shouting to the rhythm (not a big fan of that). Unexpectedly, the chorus bursts through and soars high with complex melodic guitars and sprinting drums, although it could’ve been better if the vague vocals were to be sung. When the song starts to get intense, it abruptly ends leaving you kind of empty. The second track “Dead and Gone” was definitely one of the highs of the album, it made up for the cut off from the last song. This song manages to conquer a good balance between a melodic and a progressive metal crash, all the instruments blend together and create an urban symphony. The creepy voice at the end that says a message in Spanish gives you a haunting vibe. Luckily for me I know Spanish so I figured out what it said: “creativity is free, knowing about the world around us, feel everything, let everything sink into your skin.” The same Spanish voice-overs were featured in other tracks of the album. It seemed like the album was getting a bit better, “Port Hole” started off slowly seemingly building up to a big crash, but the same weak vocals came and the screams just didn’t measure up to the heavy music. Although the experimental guitar transitioned in unexpected ways and made me anxious to what came next. Midway through the album, it’s established that guitar is the strength to the sound of A Hero A Fake, every song so far had at least an epic guitar solo or creative riffs that made the song stand out musically. Although with the complement of the thrash bass and lightning speed drums, the band goes all the way, quenching your thirst for heavy metal. Listening to the album a few times made me reassure my assumption from the first song: the vocals are not that strong. The singing that was heard was just in the background with heavy layers of screams, I seriously recommend them to stick to just screams if they don’t get an actual singer. The “singing” from lead man Justin Brown, like I mentioned before, sounds like shouting words to a rhythm. When it did showcase melodic vocals in “The Constant,” it was heavily studio-altered, I heard tricks like autotune to pitch change, and clearly Brown was meant to scream. This is probably a really mixed review at a glance, but what my point is that The Future Again is really fantastic instrumentally but really disappointing vocally. The only thing that will keep me listening to this album is the entrancing guitars and the ability of the band to transition to numerous different rhythms and tempos in one song. Highlight tracks: “Mechanical Hearts,” “Dead and Done,” “Port Hole,” “Wild Fires,” “Wasted Miles.”Check out A Hero A Fake on the following sites: WebsiteFacebookMyspaceTwitter